Intel has maintained its position at the top of the semi rankings this year, …

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iSuppli has released its year-end projections for 2007 rankings of semiconductor companies, and the numbers show some important shifts. Once again, Intel holds its position at the top of the list, posting a 7.7 percent revenue increase this year in spite of the semiconductor sector's general slowdown in revenue growth. Most of this growth is thanks to the success of the company's processor, chipset, and flash divisions, as we reported previously in our coverage of Intel's third quarter earnings report.

Things don't look nearly so good for AMD, which slipped out of the top ten with an estimated 22.7 percent drop in revenues. What to say about this, except that the Barcelona, Phenom, and R600 launches were late and underwhelming, and those delays left a gap that Intel motored right into by firing on all cylinders?

Though Intel may have topped the list, the big winners are Sony and Toshiba, both of which posted major revenue increases this year due to rising PlayStation 3 sales (56.8 and 44.1 percent, respectively). The PlayStation 3 is Sony's semi business, and with its current surge in popularity it has taken Sony into the top ten at the number 8 spot.

Ironically, this PS3-fueled bump shows exactly why Sony is selling its semi fabs to Toshiba. Unlike Intel, which can afford to have a single product—or even a product category—underperform, Sony has all of its insanely expensive semiconductor fabrication eggs in the basket that is the PS3. That's a lot of risk, and it seems that Sony no longer has the stomach for it.